“Throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly bragged about ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, and has dismissed the possibility that he would face any resistance. “They won’t refuse,” he told Fox News’ Bret Baierearlier this year. “They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.” When Baier insisted that such orders are “illegal,” Trump replied, “I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it.”

Oh really? Blimpish swagger might fly within the patriarchal confines of a family business, a criminal operation (the distinction is sometimes blurred) or a dictatorship. It does not, however, work in a liberal democracy, legally grounded by a written constitution, each branch restrained by separation of powers.

Try to imagine, then, a situation in which Trump commanded our military to do something stupid, illegal or irrational. Something so dangerous that it put the lives of Americans and the security of the country at stake. (Trump’s former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, said the United States could not trust “the nuclear codes” to an “erratic individual.”) Faced with opposition from his military brass, Trump would perhaps reconsider and back down. But what if he didn’t?

In that case, our military men and women, who swear to uphold the Constitution and a civilian chain of command, would be forced to choose between obeying the law and serving the wishes of someone who has explicitly expressed his utter lack of respect for it.

They might well choose the former.”
————————-

And I love this one…..

“Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a danger to America and the world. Voters must stop him before the military has to.”

It must be scary living in such a bed wetting fantasy land. Poor thing.

I pay little attention–how freeing it is!–but on Twitter I did see Trump’s son indicated if elected, his father would spend his time, “making America great again,” and leave the hard work of governing to Pence.

That’s actually what successful businessmen do–delegate the work to people who can perform the tasks better than they can.

Cleveland (CNN) — Donald Trump’s campaign finally moved Wednesday to shut down the distracting controversy over Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech by identifying the writer who worked on the speech.

After spending more than 36 hours directly dismissing charges of plagiarism, the campaign pivoted to acknowledge that passages had been taken from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention, in what was framed as an innocent mistake.

Meredith McIver, a family friend and writer for the Trump organization, identified herself in a statement as the person responsible for lifting phrases for Melania’s Trump convention speech. She apologized and said she had offered her resignation — but added that Donald and Melania Trump did not accept it. …

“If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday.

Christie, who is governor of New Jersey and leads Trump’s White House transition team, said the campaign was drawing up a list of federal government employees to fire if Trump defeats Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election.”

“Trump’s transition advisers fear that Obama may convert these appointees to civil servants, who have more job security than officials who have been politically appointed. This would allow officials to keep their jobs in a new, possibly Republican, administration, Christie said.

“It’s called burrowing,” Christie said. “You take them from the political appointee side into the civil service side, in order to try to set up … roadblocks for your successor, kind of like when all the Clinton people took all the Ws off the keyboard when George Bush was coming into the White House.””

I have sympathy for Mrs. Trump. Obviously, the media overreacted to the plagiarism, but such overreactions are exactly why parties script out their conventions down to the punctuation marks. The media only want to cover what goes wrong, so you aim not to give them the opportunity. As a matter of ethics, the plagiarism was a triviality. But for the staffers who let it happen, it was a capital offense. …
_________________________________________

Reports say Trumpkins threatened Cruz that certain airhead talk radio hosts (one of whom was wearing a blue dress) would attack him if he didn’t endorse. Cruz has guts. He needs to be the first president of the new Republic of Texas.

After the convention, Cruz can hire his own bandwagon and tour the country to launch his own 2020 campaign. Good luck with that.

Time to get over himself. Trump, like it or not (and many of us don’t), won fair and square. Don’t support him? Stay off the convention stage & restrain yourself for 4 days. Doesn’t seem like that’s too much to ask.

But remember, Cruz cuddled up to Donald quite conspicuously through the early debates, one of the few who wouldn’t criticize him, while the other braver Republicans took it on the chin. Cruz is a purely political animal and it shows.

In Texas, if you attack a man’s wife and then ask him to speak for you, you are going to get this or worse. I still wish Cruz would have just decked Trump at the next debate after the picture posting incident. I guess this was the next best option.